Reflecting on Some Possible Changes in the Curation

I'm thinking about it after seeing how the voteme channel has been doing.

I'm going to use the average vote value given by @hivephilippines on Hayahays when Hive is priced at 0.32$. AT the time of this writing, a regular member gets 0.237$ of upvote, but that is cut in half because the other half of the value goes back to curators from a 50/50 reward split during payout. So the author gets 0.119$.

Now let's assume Hive price is stable for the rest of the year. At 0.119$ once a day, an avid user can potentially get 43.435$ for a year because even if you don't post, you can still use the bot to trigger on your comments. Now 43.435$ a year is just a hypothetical scenario because it could be more or less due to crypto being volatile. And even if Hive goes into a downtrend, a regular user still gets more from the privilege than what most probably take for granted.

Let's say the same user is delegating to @hivephilippines with 100 HP. The community account takes 10% from the delegation rewards and sent to the community fund. The average curation returns is around 9%. So if you're delegating 100 HP, your delegation rewards will be 9 Hive throughout the year but 0.9 Hive goes to the community fund (10% fee). Can you imagine the impact of 100 HP to the community coffers? 0.9 Hive for a year, that is assuming the same user keeps their 100 HP delegations for 365 days which doesn't usually happen.

Now let's go back to the Hive Price being at 0.32$. 0.9 Hive is equivalent to 0.288$.

For every 0.288$ you give to the community fund, you're getting 43.435$ in return and this is assuming you keep your delegations for an entire year, using the bot daily, and the prices remain relatively constant. Now all these scenarios happening together doesn't happen because price can go up, down or sideways. Regardless of the market direction, the amount of Hive you give to the community fund and value you receive from the votes are still proportional so you're still getting more for giving less.

To further add to the taken for granted benefit, the currency used here is in USD. This means the returns are higher than the peso equivalent most of the time.

Wow, taas ng APR pero bakit hindi ramdam?

If you have 100 pesos and earning at 7% APR, you're already doing well beating the inflation but having 7 pesos to show for feels like a lack luster achievement despite it objectively being a good performance. That's the same energy when it comes to reward expectations with posts and voting privileges, despite the small votes which can potentially compound your gains, you're probably going to be wishing for more.

This is where expectation management matters. You're not the only one that wants to earn more for doing less or wants to maximize whatever resources they can on the platform. Even if this small 0.118$ value on your wallet daily is giving you a lot of returns in the long run, you'd still grow discontent seeing others can have a higher payout.

Minsan ba napapaisip kayo na biglang may nag bigay ng malaking tip sa mga shitposts niyo? automatic ba nag assume na well deserved kasi pinaghirapan niyo? we don't question the upvotes or the privileges given to us because our expectations are set that we are entitled to these conveniences despite having no merit to show for it. When I started getting involved with communities on the platform, whenever someone shows me a favor in good faith, I skeptically ask what's in it for them and why are they giving me free money?

What exactly did I do that makes the post I published deserving of the vote even when it has no value, isn't something I personally would tip for if someone else did it, and most certainly goes forgotten past 7 days. And yet the first retort I'd hear whenever someone shrugs at the small votes this community gives is they can do better on their own, I'll be like, yeah, probably true but it's much appreciated to just do away with the hiveph tag and let's agree to be on our merry way away from each other.

I remember the early days when voting privileges were being set up. You think it's unfair that the channel is off limits to visitors? I'll always circle back to what merits the guest has that makes them entitled.

You think the same users who have no regard to why the community exists but feels entitled to its support would bat an eye when Hive pumps? you can't expect the same crowd to change because it's never a price problem.

The whole point of the voting bot was to spread the wealth across community members because there's a limit to the time a community curator has. It's nice to see some members got the memo and using the privilege to curate others. They read the instructions and pass the assignment. There's a voteme statistics command to keep track and there are more metrics being considered.

Now this isn't a call for anyone to jump into the voteme channel and start curating others because that's not entirely the point. Voting others more doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing, remember that this is a community account VP that's being drained in the process. Keep using the bot for a lot of posts and you'll end up draining the VP for others who may want to use the vote too.

That's why I'm thinking of some restrictions when it comes to the usage like limiting trigger per user or decreasing the vote weights so that more can be spread around. Let's say 25% vote weights now is 0.3$, when Hive price pumps to 0.6%, that value also double but it doesn't necessarily mean your post's quality became 100% better. It's mostly just trying to find a balance in spreading the wealth for everyone else's benefit.

It's good to have an initiative to support other community members and even those outside this community. But note that wealth distribution is another form of reinvesting in the community. So if you're directing that wealth to people that are unlikely to reciprocate the community values this community has been promoting, you're only casting those resources into the void.

I've always stressed the importance of @hivephilippines, that account isn't just for the sake of collecting community funds from the fees, it's a means for people not active on the platform to help other users use their stake on their behalf so that other community members can benefit from the resources too.

Consider the growth of @hiveph account as a parody befitting of an inverse ponzi, instead of the benefits being given to those that put in the work building this account and community from the early adopters who were builder, the bulk of those benefits are reaped by newcomers that never had to struggle building the name. The early builders went inactive and now things are made easier for newbies on the platform.

Yet there's still this idea that it's hard to earn a cent here because there aren't any large votes coming. The early Filipino pioneers here celebrated votes with 0.02$ value already from the legacy chain. You think it's tough now? try grinding before as a nobody. Introduction posts were valued at half a dollar and that's a norm. Hivers that are doing well on their weekly payouts used to have barely a dollar to show for on their posts. Hive is now a fucking paradise for newbies because things got better when communities were built beforehand and yet some would still feel like a loser for not reaching a dollar on a post.

In case anyone hasn't notice, a lot of the Hive that could've been spent to build the account are kept in liquid to distribute for community rewards, cover the liquidity problems with the delegation rewards, and etc. This lead to the community account growing at 1% per year instead of 12-13% like any other account. Where do you think those resources went? those occasional reports we publish about our spending weren't just for show.

It's also one of the reasons why we're shifting the community rewards from liquid Hive to HSBI because we're focused on investing on community members in the long term. I make plans for the next year as a bare minimum for long term goal setting. The changes that have been happening are gradual because we're not here for the short term gain and hype. We want to build better and this includes focusing our resources on people that can be assets to the community instead of dead weights.

I wanted to extend the post a bit further but 1.5k words seems like more than enough for this rant's segment.

Disclaimer: I may have some mistake with the math but if you can point it out for corrections, that'd be great.

Sinulat ni Adam.